I took part in the London public sector rally on 30 November 2011.

Pictured is the BECTU banner.

I went to the annual BECTU London Freelances’ Fair 2011 on Friday 17 June 2011 at Savoy Place.

In the morning I went to The Freelance Toolkit Workshop – an extremely informative and useful session run by David Thomas.

After a peruse around the fair exhibition area (pictured), I participated in two seminars in the afternoon: the first on using DSLR cameras to make film and television programmes (not convinced, to say the least!) and the second on pitching programme ideas (a sort of role playing exercise – very interesting).

This year saw a significant increase in attendence compared to last year – many thanks to BECTU’s Writers Producers and Directors Branch for organising the event and to the sponsors for their support.

I attended the launch of the Lost Arts campaign in Westminster on Wednesday 15 June 2011.

The campaign includes a website that will record all the arts-related events, projects and organisations that will be closed due to cuts in public funding; including a running total of money lost to the arts and the resultant negative impact on the economy.

I attended this year’s BECTU Annual Conference in Eastbourne on the weekend of 4-5 June 2011.

I’ve just launched the BECTU May 2011 London Production Division social networking evening site.

I put together this simple one page site in less than a day – made possible by the flexibility and efficiency of WordPress.

I joined the BECTU contingent on the TUC March for the Alternative on Saturday 26 March 2011.

We were joined by more than quater of a million protesters on the march from Embankment to Hyde Park.

Below Yvonne does a sterling job carrying her placard on the march.

The scene at 1512 in Hyde Park when I arrived.

I spent the weekend of 15-16 May 2010 attending this year’s BECTU Annual Conference in Bournemouth.

I prepared the slides for the Conference on Saturday 15 May, along with those for the BBC Divisional Conference the following day, which were expertly projected on the screen behind the stage area by the regular vision and sound team of Neil Denbow and Ross Hammond.

As well as the decisions taken by BECTU Branch delegates at the Annual Conference, the event was also noteworthy from my perspective for three other reasons:

• This was the final Conference for the organiser, David Cormack, who retires from the union as Administrative Officer after 31 years service at BECTU and it’s predecessor unions. He has ensured there has been an effective administrative core to the union’s activities. Many thanks to David for the advice he’s given me over the years, and good luck in all future enterprises.
• It was also the final Conference, as BECTU President, for Tony Lennon. He has chosen not to stand for re-election as President this year, following 18 years in the position, in view of his retirement from the BBC. Tony has ensured BECTU’s message has been communicated far and wide using every available medium. Tony and I instigated the BECTU website in 1997, then one of the first union sites. In the subsequent years we developed the site and provided content until early 2009; in the early years sometimes to the bafflement of others who had not understood the long term significance of the web. I await Tony’s next career move with interest.
• The result of the 2010-2012 BECTU President election was announced at the close of Conference, with Christine Bond emerging as the winner. I predict Christine will prove to be a worthy successor to Tony, and the website I built for the election campaign will provide a further potential channel of communication for the new President.

Following the union’s Divisional Conferences on the Sunday morning, a select number of delegates explored the real ale delights of The Goat and Tricycle pub.

Pictured by Mark Dimmock above is a rouges gallery of those attending Conference connected with my former Branch ESPG. They are Henry Gibson, Tony Thomas, Nick Carroll and Ken Southern.

At least three of them were last seen in the vicinity of Waterloo Rail Station on or about the afternoon of Monday 17 May 2010.

My new site for Christine Bond has recently been launched.

The site is for Christine’s campaign in the BECTU NEC and President elections.

I used WordPress to build the site (of course!), giving a great deal of flexibility to quickly react to developments in the election campaigns in the next few weeks.

Christine, coming from a photography background, was detailed in her design brief, and hopefully I’ve brought her ideas to life on the web.

Good luck to Christine in the elections!

• Stately decline [Media Guardian] and the associated PDA post Kingswood Warren: The end of an era gives the background to BBC Kingswood Warren faces strike.
• Intel unites the internet with TV [BBC News] Intel and Yahoo work towards a Widget Channel, or as Yahoo calls it the Cinematic Internet.
• iPlayer goes for higher bitrates, Olympic Gold and home theaters? [NewTeeVee] Is the BBC looking at a new generation of devices offering internet experiences alongside video content?
• Celebrating a stereo pioneer: Alan Blumlein [BBC News] His contributions to audio engineering, television and radar were amazing – some of his early stereo recordings have been restored.

• Ofcom leak shakes staff confidence [BECTU]
• Ofcom’s blueprint leaked [Media Guardian]
• My show-stopping session at WordCamp [Puffbox]
• Know exactly where you stand in the world [Media Guardian]
• Beyond REST? Building data services with XMPP PubSub [Anarchogeek]